Ģirts Freibergs, once a Council member of Citadele Bank, has been chosen as the second Board member of Latvian Privatization Agency, as reported by Latvian Economy Minister Vyacheslav Dombrovskis.

Initially, however, Dombrovskis refused to mention specific names. Nevertheless, after countless questions he confirmed that it is Freibergs.

Freibergs was selected for this post because of his experience. Dombrovskis explains that Freibergs has experience in the financial field and Citadele Bank. With that, the minister believes the new Board member of PA has, at best, two days to review the sale of Citadele Bank before its signing.

It is planned that Freibergs will be approved in his new post either this Monday or Tuesday.

As previously reported, Chairman of Privatization Agency Ansis Spridzans and Board member Guntis Lausks have left their posts. They are the ones who were supposed to sign the contract on the sale of Citadele Bank this Friday, October 31st.

This Wednesday, Latvian Economy Minister Vyacheslav Dombrovskis received resignations of both Spridzans and Lausks. It is planned that a meeting of PA shareholders will be called this Thursday, October 30th, in order to decide on future actions.

PA public relations manager Guntis Karklins could not provide any detailed comments as to why those two officials decided to leave their posts. When asked if this situation could have an impact on the signing of the Citadele Bank sale contract, Karklins explained Economy Ministry has the authority to find a temporary solution.

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a visit this Wednesday to Kaliningrad, the westernmost point of Russia, but the reports about his trip in the Russian enclave and over the border in Lithuania were strikingly different.

Latvian airBaltic airline carried 393,312 passengers in July 2017, which is 21% more than the same period last year. The number of passengers carried by airBaltic remains the highest it has ever been in the airline’s history, BNN was informed by the company.

U.S. Air Force Brigade’s Task Force Phoenix helicopters, which are stationed in Latvia as part of Atlantic Resolve operation, will be performing low-altitude flights from 16:00 to 18:00 from Lielvarde to Dobele on Friday, 18 August.

An Indian citizen travelling from Moscow on a bus was caught at Terehovo border control point in Latvia for presenting officers a fake EU family member’s resident card. No criminal process was launched. The person returned to the country he was travelling from.

From 21 August onward, Rural Support Service plans to start accepting applications for projects to receive support from European Maritime and Fisheries Fund’s action plan for development of fisheries in 2014-2020 as part of projects Innovation, Productive Investments in Aquaculture and Fishing and Aquaculture project processing.

As the Estonian Ministry of Finance wishes to boost the reputation and brand of the Baltic country's public sector, it has announced a procurement tender aimed at preparing an action plan for reaching these goals.

Because of Swedbank’s planned IT modernization work scheduled for the night to Thursday, 17 August, there may be short term problems with payment card and internet banking functionality, the bank warns.

If he became chairman of Unity, Economy Minister Arvils Aseradens would mobilize democratic forces to prevent the possibility of either Aivars Lembergs or Nils Usakovs becoming prime ministers, Aseradens said in an interview to 900 seconds programme of LNT.

The co-founder of the U.S. computer software firm Microsoft, Bill Gates, has allocated to charity 4.6 billion U.S. dollars (3.9 billion euros), which is the philanthropist's highest donation since the year 2000.

Latvia and Russia will exchange 7,000 universal permits for international cargo transports in 2017. This will be the largest universal permit volume in the past 15 years, as reported by Road Directorate.